


Sentiment

by darthrev



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Child Soldiers, F/M, Implied/Referenced Character Death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-17
Updated: 2017-01-17
Packaged: 2018-09-18 05:25:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,986
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9369920
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/darthrev/pseuds/darthrev
Summary: It was sentiment. That was what he told himself later, alone with the four-postured bed and still later, bleeding out in the snow in some strange wilderness, silver eyes penetrating that mask of death and robes of darkness clinging to him like slavers' bonds, all the while the mark on his arm burned with His anger.





	

It was sentiment. That was what he told himself later, alone with the four-postured bed and still later, bleeding out in the snow in some strange wilderness, silver eyes penetrating that mask of death and robes of darkness clinging to him like slavers' bonds, all the while the mark on his arm burned with _His_ anger.

Back then, his fate had hung down upon him like some omnipresent cloud, reminding him of his doom, but it had seemed possible that it might not come to pass. He was a child and like many a child before him, he had fallen in love with Hogwarts. It was bright and warm, almost like Nott Manor had been before his mother had died.

His fault.

Always his fault.

He shook his head whenever those thoughts threatened to overwhelm him. Instead, he concentrated on other things, like the ever-changing corridors leading him to parts unknown. He was not like other boys his age. He didn't feel the need to join groups or cliques or playact in the Common Room in imitation of his father like Draco and the others did.

He did not want to be like his father.

But, Hogwarts, Hogwarts was different. There was no motive there, no duplicity. It simply _was_. He could feel the magic in every stone, every tapestry, every portrait the watched him continuously. It invited him to forget about the way the other Houses looked at him, judging him by the tie he wore or the whispers of the Pure-Bloods who knew he was the son of a Death Eater just like most of the other Slytherins. It invited him forget about his father shakily leaving the dungeons beneath their manor, blood staining his robes, shakily explaining that it was only a single Muggle this time when he spotted him.

He could lose himself exploring the forgotten corridors, classrooms, and chambers of the castle. He did not always find something particularly interesting, but the magic was there, like an old friend. The only friend he needed.

But then, it had led him to her that early morning in his second year. She wasn't alone. She stood bare-footed on the stone floor, her feet already reddened from the cold, but she paid them no mind. She stared intently at a magazine unnaturally stuck on a wall ten feet above her head. Two older Ravenclaws looked down upon her, one whose lips were curled in distaste while the other spoke.

“That piece of trash is where it belongs, Looney. You can't be spoouting nonsense about grumpkins and Nargles and Crumple Nosed Snorkacks.”

“Crumple Horned Snorkacks. They don't much like being confused for Crumple Nose Snorkacks,” she evenly replied and Theo could not help but stifle a laugh from his hiding place arouond the corner as the speaker turned red.

“Well, I'm not going to get it down...”

“You should destroy it so she doesn't keep losing us points going on about rubbish in class,” the other spoke with a shrug. The other nodded, but the girl objected, her voice no longer quite serene.

“Wait, that one's not in print anymore!”

“So?” the first asked.

“My mum published it. I rather like it,” she replied. Her voice was still level, but Theo recognized the tone and the way she held herself and he knew without being told the reason why it could not be printed anymore.

“So? _Incen-_ ”

“ _Expelliarmus_!”

Theo's wand was in his hands before he was aware of it, the words on his lips and the spell striking true. The wand broke against the wall and Theo allowed himself to smile in satisfaction. The magazine fluttered in the air, but he was quick to grab it when it fluttered near him. He shouldn't have felt as angry as he was in that moment, but he was. His eyes bore into them and he could see that he had them scared and he was going to keep them scared before they realized that he was at least a year younger than them. He pointed his wand at them, as though he were about to curse them.

“Did you know that really nasty hexes could be considered curses if you put enough power in them? My father likes to show his personal favorites to me sometimes. Says I never know when I might need them and that the Unforgivables were dreadfully unoriginal anyway.”

There it was, the tactile admission that, yes, his father was not on the good side during the war (with plausible deniabiltiy of course) and that maybe he knew things they did not. They paled and one of them murmured some excuse about breakfast and this wasn't worth the trouble and that left him standing there with a very old ragged magazine in one hand and he suddenly felt awkward standing there.

He looked at her and she seemed to be studying him curiously, eyes switching from his face to the magazine. He couldn't quite guess what she thought and he felt himself dreadfully exposed there. She had heard his words. She knew what he said he was. She had to hate him. Like the others. Hurriedly he, shoved it into her hands.

“It's yours, right? I mean, I heard you say it was your mum's.”

“It's my favorite of hers. Thank you,” she told him with a sad smile and he knew he had been right and he couldn't help but flush again.

“I hate people like them anyway,” he murmured and still, he couldn't get why she was looking at him like that. There wasn't anything to magically discover about him. She hummed and he couldn't help but raise an eyebrow at the habit.

“They're not very nice are they? Not everyone is like you, Theodore.”

He stiffened, his mouth agape. How did she...

“You look like a Theodore. It's in the way your hair is messed up and your eyes seem sad, like bubblesnark has attached itself to you and you can't seem to get it off.”

She was odd, but she had seemed to read him like a Legilmens and fear ran down his spine. He did not like being so exposed, but she was different. Like the objects that didn't quite work in the found in that room one night after curfew and couldn't find again. Like Hogwarts. She just  _was_ .

“And who are you? By your strangeness, you have to be the Moon,” he snarked

“Luna Lovegood,” she told him, holding out her hand and Theo was tempted to take it. He was intrigued by her, terribly intrigued, and he wanted to listen to her more. Not to mention she felt safe and genuine and he was suddenly feeling tired of being alone.

“ _When the Dark Lord Returns, you will be a Death Eater my boy. Look, in your first year, my Mark became clearer. He's coming.”_

A future Death Eater could not be friends with someone like her. Not unless he escaped it. Somehow. And he knew he couldn't just ask a random first year how to escape the Dark Lord when he returned. And with a pang in his breast, he turned to leave her. He was Theodore Nott. He didn't need friends or groups or anything like that. He was fine alone. It was just sentiment, he told himself.

*

He was alone when the Dark Lord had indeed returned. He was alone when his father woke him up in the middle of the night and apparated him to Malfoy Manor and took him to the Dark Lord. When he received the Mark, _encircled by his new brethren_ , he felt more alone still when he cried out. It was not a wail of pain as most of them thought. It was despair in the knowledge that he truly belonged to the Dark Lord and the mark burned with savage delight, letting Theo know that his new lord knew of his despair and acceptance of the fate that he always knew was going to be his.

He was clothed in black robes and a hideous mask and when Draco entered his room that night to ease the pain of the magic burning throughout his very skin, there was no happiness in his friend's expression. Draco always thought that being a Death Eater was a glorious fate. One he had eagerly accepted for himself, but now, he knew better. Like Theo always had. But he never had the courage to share his thoughts with him.

And because of that they were both damned.

*

He was grateful for his mask when he and the others stopped the train. He had watched her throughout the years and he at times felt bitter regret for fleeing from her, but he knew he could not have done anything else. It was his fate to be a Death Eater and now, it seemed, it was her fate to be an enemy of the Dark Lord's. A companion to Harry _Bloody_ Potter and the daughter of a dotty journalist that printed stories in support of him.

“She's rather pretty, don't you think?” Alexius Selwyn, an older Death Eater said cheerfully as they stepped off the train, “Dotty though. Off to see her dotty father for the holidays.”

Theo said nothing from behind his mask. Maybe if he didn't say anything, she wouldn't recognize his voice. She probably wouldn't have. He didn't sound anything like the twelve year old he was five long years ago. Still, he didn't want to take that chance. He couldn't.

“You can apparate with her there, Theo. I might splince her and you're a lot better at it than this lot,” he said dismissively, gesturing to the others with them and Theo felt his chest ache as she turned to look at him. Right through his mask and he wanted to apologize and explain and...

“I understand, Theodore,” she told him and he choked out the words and with a crack they vanished from the face of the earth, their atoms shoved through a tiny hole in space and reappearing somewhere else.

He cried out in pain as they landed roughly beneath a snowy sky, trees dotting the landscape as far as the eye could see. His blood painted the snow red and he groaned at the memory it evoked of another person who had bled out on a snowy day in a forest just like this. He pressed his hands against the wound, a long bloody, ugly opening cut diagonally across his chest, the flesh having separated from him during the disapparition. His arm burned and he knew his lord was angry, but he didn't care when he saw that Luna wasn't harmed. He smiled beneath the mask and he tried to take it off, but he couldn't. He felt faint and his arms weren't responding the way they were supposed to. She ran to him, concern on her face.

“Take it off,” he pleaded, “I don't want to die like this.”

“It's not your time,” she told him, but she lifted it off all the same and he was greeted with the sight of her pale face, her normally unfocused expression focused completely upon him as she lifted her wand and began to murmur spells he could not quite grasp and he lay back.

“It was sentiment,” he murmured and she looked at him questioningly, but already he was losing consciousness, “I didn't want to hurt you.... You were different and I wanted.... But I was always going to be this and you... You saw me. And then, when I was asked to take you to him, I couldn't... My fault. Always my fault.”

Darkness took him and his eyes shut, but dimly, he had time to wonder why there was warm raindrops falling upon his face.

 

**A/N. Well, this went darker than I thought it would. I guess one choice can affect your life's outcome.**

 


End file.
